Two days after a suicide bomber killed a top-ranking police officer here, the security forces gunned down three suspected militants in the Zarghoonabad area of Nawan Killi in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province.

Home minister, Balochistan, Mir Sarfaraz Bugti said a joint search operation was carried out by the Frontier Corps and Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in the Zarghoonabad area on Friday night following information about the presence of militants in a house.

"The militants opened fire on the search party and in retaliation three of them were killed," he said.

The operation was conducted after DIG Telecommunications Hamid Shakeel Sabir, along with ASI Ramzan Muhammad Hasani and constable Jalil Ahmed Kurd, was killed on Thursday when a suicide bomber struck his convoy while he was coming out of his house here.

Bugti said the security forces seized a large cache of ammunition, suicide vests and communication equipment from the house.

All the three militants belonged to an extremist organisation, he said.

Their bodies have been shifted to the Civil Hospital for identification, the home minister said.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on Sabir, who had worked in a senior position with the CTD and carried out several operations against terrorists before he was transferred as the DIG Telecommunications.

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